Impossible Things
by Eliza Dawn
Summary: Alice's battle with the Jabberwocky, from the point of view of the Hatter. A/N- this story is on hold, indefinitely. Sorry y'all, bit off more than I could chew here.
1. Frabjous Day

Author's Note: This is my first fanfiction ever, so please have some sympathy!

Disclaimer: Sadly, this world does not belong to me, it is the property of Disney and Tim Burton

"Sometimes I believe in six impossible things before breakfast."

_Six impossible things… that hair could look like that, exactly like gold. That a face could appear so completely determined and so completely terrified at the same time. That a girl so perfect, so beautiful and kind and smart and utterly wonderful could ever look at a Mad Hatter that way, as though she trusted him more than anyone or anything else in the world, as though, for her, everything would be ok now, just because he was there… _

**Impossible, indeed. No one could ever feel that way about a delusional, haphazard, highstrung mockery of a man who abandoned his family as they burned, who was so volatile they had to be careful what they said around him, for fear of one of his mad fits for which he was so well known…**

The hatter could feel his control beginning to slip. He made a valiant effort to calm himself, knowing it would be the opposite of helpful for him to lose it here, on this most important of days. Not to mention there was the girl, the brave, wonderful girl who did not need to be worrying about him, she had enough on her plate as it was… the girl who, he realized belatedly, was probably waiting for him to respond to her earlier comment.

"That is an excellent practice." He smiled at her, for all the world a normal man, doing what a normal man would do during a normal conversation with a …friend. The hatter hated that word. Actually, this was a fairly recent development. Before Alice's second visit, he and the word "friend" had been on quite good terms. But then Alice returned, and the Hatter's view on many things radically changed, for example the fact that the word "friend" now seemed woefully insufficient, he wanted to call Alice something other than his friend, something much, much more.

A roar startled him out of his thoughts, for which he was almost glad. His thoughts had never been a particularly pleasant place to be. But the roar reminded him of the reason they were there.

"But just at the moment, you may want to focus on the Jabberwock," he said, knowing his Outlandish brogue had crept into his voice by the end of the sentence, probably because he was so nervous that he was about to empty the contents of his stomach onto the checkered ground. He knew what was about to happen, and the thought of Alice being in any way harmed…

**KILL THEM, KILL THEM ALL IF SHE IS HURT, CUT THEM, STAB THEM, **_**OFF WITH THEIR HEADS. **_**Not one of the Red Queen's soldiers would walk away from this place if anything happened to his Alice, that is a fact-**

The hatter suddenly realized she was no longer standing by his side, instead she was walking toward the monster, mouth set in determination.

_NO! I'll do it, take me, take me instead, but please. Not her, not Alice, PLEASE…_

But the hatter knew she had to do this. Moreover, he knew she _could_ do this. His Alice was strong, and brave, and could do anything, because it meant that the ones she loved would be safe.

**Not counting ourselves as part of that group, are we? You know she doesn't love you, how could she?**

And Tarrant did not even try to argue with himself, he knew she didn't love him, and quite honestly he didn't blame her. It was simply impossible.

_Whatever happened to "sometimes I believe in as many as six impossible things before breakfast?" She cared enough to go to Salazen Grum, just to try and rescue me. And she seemed relieved when I got out alive… _

**You told her she'd lost her muchness-**

_I believed in her, when the others didn't-_

**You had a fit in the hat room, scared her, disgusted her probably-**

_I let her ride on my hat-_

_**We**_** are **_**MAD**_**.**

…

**Precisely.**

The hatter sighed to himself. No matter the outcome of these little arguments, he always lost. Also, he hated when his Other Side forced him to acknowledge the truth, that they were one and the same, two voices, same mad mind that they came from. Once it had just been the one voice. That side of him was mad, yes, but a good kind of mad. His Other Side, however, was mad in the worst way possible. It was violent, angry, and just _bad._ And the hatter was afraid of that side.

Still partially lost in his thoughts, he allowed his gaze to wander over to the battle between Alice and her foe, and saw something that sent him into full blown panic. The battle was not going well for his champion. She was on the ground, blade knocked from her grip, and the monster was bearing down upon her, bloodlust gleaming in its terrible eyes.

_**NOOOO! HELP HER, SAVE HER, DO ANYTHING!**_

For once, his Other Side's violent tendencies came in handy.

Without thinking, cursing himself for not paying closer attention, the hatter drew his greatsword and plunged it into the closest part of the beast: its long, serpentine tail. The Jabberwocky hissed in pain and anger, turning its head to locate the source of the wound in its tail, thus giving Alice the time she needed to scramble to her feet, grab her sword and slash at the creature's sensitive snout.

He didn't have time to relish his small victory, because in the next second, a high pitched, nasally voice, his second least favorite voice in the world, shrieked "THE HATTER'S INTERFERING! _OFF WITH HIS HEAD!"_

He grimaced.

**I'd like to see you try…**


	2. Prisoner

Tarrant lay his hat on the ground. He'd been through so much with that hat, and he wasn't about to allow the chaos of the battle to cause him to part ways with it now. He stepped forward to meet his attacker, none other than the owner of his least favorite voice in Underland, the Knave of Hearts, Ilosovic Stayne. It was strange, but although the hatter wanted the Red Queen dethroned and imprisoned, he did not truly want her dead (at least, he didn't want that when he was in control of himself. During one of his fits, it was a different story). Stayne, on the other hand, the hatter wanted dead. Moreover, the hatter wanted to kill him, with his bare hands. These thoughts in the hatter, especially when said hatter was in a state of lucidity, were really quite uncommon. Tarrant was, for the most part, a gentle soul. With a grim, humorless smile, the hatter thought about the reason for his unusually murderous thoughts.

…flashback…

He was chained by the ankle to a wall, in a tiny, overcrowded room, or perhaps cell was a better word, in the palace of the Red Queen, Salazen Grum. Mallymkun was there as well, working tirelessly at the lock, just as she had been doing for the past four hours or so. Not that he lacked faith in Mally, she was a good friend and extraordinarily talented for a mouse, but after a certain amount of Time, even a Mad Hatter knew hope was lost. It was nearly that Time when Alice, his Alice, had burst into the room, Vorpal sword in hand, eyes blazing with so much muchness it almost hurt to look. But he couldn't look away. Here was Alice, the Champion of Underland, and so much more, here to rescue him personally. And that look on her face… the hatter felt tiny morsels of Hope begin to wriggle about, deep in his heart.

_She looks as though this is where she's meant to be, here with me. Have I made a rhyme? _

"Move over, Mallymkun," Alice muttered, much to the obvious displeasure of the dormouse.

Alice raised the sword high, preparing to bring it down own the silver chain which kept the hatter tethered in place. The hatter just looked at her.

_So beautiful…_

**I concur. The way that dress displays her curves… and the neckline is so low-**

_NO! That is NOT what I meant… to even thing such things about my Alice… she's pure, like air, or sunshine-_

_**My **_**Alice! It seems to me that you have forgotten exactly where you stand in her estimation. And you DID think that; don't even try to deny it. What would be the point? She'll never fall for a raving lunatic; you know she's far too bright for that.**

_That doesn't mean I need to lose her friendship, too! And that's exactly what would happen if she knew that I just thought what I did._

"**Too"? I will remind you, once again, because you seem to be in the habit of forgetting: She. Doesn't. Love. You. Never has, never will. And you can't lose what you never had, mate.**

The hatter really despised these little quarrels he had with himself. His good side rarely, if ever, seemed to win. Plus, now he felt rather guilty about staring at Alice. Luckily, she did something then that snapped his attention away from her (admittedly rather low) neckline.

"How's this for muchness?" Alice asked, maybe to him, maybe to Mally, maybe to nobody. It was then that her obvious intentions fully dawned on him. She began to lower the Vorpal sword.

The hatter held up his hands in a gesture that clearly screamed "STOP".

"No, no, it mustn't be used for anything b-"

He was interrupted by a voice, that most hated of all voices, the voice of the Queen's personal lapdog.

"ARREST THAT GIRL FOR UNLAWFUL SEDUCTION!"

That one sentence caused the hatter to feel several distinct onslaughts of emotion in quick succession.

He felt protective.

**Arrest her? Arrest **_**my **_**Alice? Over my dead body-**

He felt afraid.

_What if I can't protect her? I'm chained to the bloody wall, and there's not a godforsaken __weapon__ in sight! Stayne could kill me and then arrest her! And we all know that in this place, "arrest" is just a synonym for "decapitate"-_

He felt- and this one took him very much by surprise, but he felt _jealous._

**Seduction? No… she wouldn't do that… not **_**Stayne**_**… she wouldn't … **_**seduce **_**him! **

**Would she?**

**She doesn't… can't… **_**want **_**him!**

**Can she?**

And lastly, he felt a very familiar emotion. Tarrant felt angry- with himself.

_Of course she wouldn't seduce Stayne. How could she? Alice is pure good. Not a fiber of her being is tainted like that. Stayne is lying, because he is a liar, a scoundrel, a villain, and a dirty, black hearted, hideously unattractive KNAVE._

"Hatter!" Mallymkun yelled, probably because she had seen the lurid orange flash in his eyes that the Knave's words had elicited.

And then the hatter had no time for feeling anything at all besides "Alice needs me." He sprang into action.

"Take it to the White Queen!" the hatter shouted to Alice. They both knew what "it" was.

"I'm not leaving without you!" she yelled back. His heart stopped, for a split second, at those words. _She wants me with her, wants me safe… _But he pushed those thoughts aside. **Probably means nothing.**

"GO!" he screamed, before turning his attention to the knave and his men. Grabbing two rolls of fabric from a nearby shelf, he hurled them at the advancing card soldiers, knocking them to the ground. And then there was Stayne. As the taller man approached, the hatter had to laugh a bit at his predicament.

_Aside from Mallymkun, I do believe I am the shortest in this room. This is rarely the case. I'm not sure I like this very much…_

He turned and searched desperately for something to use as a weapon, or at the very least a distraction. Doing this, he saw Alice, who had obviously not gone when he'd told her. If their situation had been less dire, he'd have shaken his head and smiled indulgently. _Too small or too tall. _But he didn't have the Time. He grabbed a hat, a lovely golden sombrero style piece, and hurled it like a discus at Stayne, who halved it neatly with his sword as it flew through the air. It served its purpose, however, in distracting Stayne so the Hatter could lunge across the room (with the aid of the dormouse) to grab a metal dressmaker's dummy, which he used to prevent the knave's sword from piercing his flesh. This was not, however, a very efficient plan of action, and Stayne quickly succeeded in pushing him back against his wooden worktable. He reached behind him to grab something, anything he could use to ward off the knave's ferocious blows.

It was then that the dormouse saw fit to squeak (loudly, but it was still a squeak) "Run, Alice!"

Everyone froze.

**Oh, Mally…**

Stayne turned to look at the girl in question, as understanding slowly dawned. His face arranged itself into the expression of a cat who had just stumbled upon a clan of particularly fat mice (sorry, Mallymkun) and was now planning to devour them, albeit in the slowest and most agonizing way possible. Mally had clapped both hands over her tiny mouth, but the damage was done.

"Alice," the knave said, still staring at her, his tone matching his expression.

The hatter used his opponent's distraction to gain a momentary advantage.

"RUN," he said to Alice, all the urgency he felt packed into that one syllable.

This time, she obliged.

The last thing the hatter heard before the hilt of Stayne's sword collided with his head was his least favorite voice commanding "Seize her."

Then, the world was black.

**A/N: **I apologize for my odd way of structuring this thing. The majority of this chapter, and the entirety of the next chapter (at least, if all goes according to my plan, plan meaning the vague idea that I've got in my head, which came to me in the middle of writing this chapter) consist of a flashback to an earlier point in the story. I realize this must be confusing, and that is because planning ahead has never been one of my strong suits. Bear with me please. Thank you very much for reading, and if it's not too much to ask could you pretty, pretty please give me a quick review? Please? Also, could one of you wise, worldly souls out there please explain to this Fanfiction newbie the difference between a hit and a visitor? Much obliged, love y'all.


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